How the YouTube Music Rollout Should Have Gone

Let’s Imagine an Alternate Universe

This whole YouTube Music thing has been really poorly handled. It’s not entirely clear where the overlap is between existing services and subscriptions, what will happen to users’ content, and when anything is actually happening (some users are using the new YouTube Music app, but others, like me, got an ad for it and are still seeing the old version).

“Black headphones leaning against a collection of vinyl records on a shelf” by Mark Solarski on Unsplash

The problem, it seems, is Google’s lack of orchestration and vision for their products. Sometimes Google really gets things right, but right now, media and entertainment is not one of them.

Let’s imagine an alternate universe for a minute. One where there are larger changes as part of this whole YouTube Music thing. One where these changes would make sense, and you might imagine reading a news article like this:

Goodbye Google Play, Hello YouTube

Google Shaking Up Subscriptions, Doubling Down on YouTube Brand

Today Google announced it was doubling down on the success of the YouTube brand, rolling all of its various media and entertainment services into one. This may sound familiar (Google Play, anyone?), but it reflects a stronger focus on entertainment and recognizing what works with the YouTube model. The…